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"She said that the information age was creating a crisis of unbelievable dimensions for any race or group or entity that had depended on secrecy. She said that people alive today were not realizing just how grave the crisis was."

"Once again, she's right about that too," said David.

I didn't want to admit it, but I agreed. The great international Roman Catholic Church was being brought to its knees by the internet or information age. And that was only one such institution.

Benji's incessant broadcasts, websites, and blogs; maverick blood drinkers with picture-capturing iPhones; satellite mobiles that were better than telepathy at reaching individuals at any time in any part of the world--all were revolutionary beyond imagining.

"She said the time was past when an immortal could shepherd a network of human beings as she'd done with the Great Family. She said the ancient records wouldn't even have survived modern investigation if she had not done what she did. Understand, she said, no one would ever really catch on as to who she was and what she'd done with the Great Family. That was a story for us to understand; human beings would always believe it was fictive nonsense even if they read it in Lestat's books. But sooner or later new and enterprising members of the family would begin researching with exhaustive depth. Had she not withdrawn and covered her tracks, the whole endeavor would have become mired in unanswerable questions. The Great Family itself would have been hurt. Well, she said, she'd taken care of it. It had taken six years, but she'd done it and now everything was finished and she could be at peace."

"At peace," David repeated respectfully.

"Yes, well, I sensed a deepening sadness in her, a melancholy."

"And at the same time," David offered, "she showed little interest in anything else."

"Precisely," said Jesse. "You are so exactly right. For hours on end, she's listened to Benji's broadcasts out of New York, Benji's complaining that the tribe was parentless, that blood drinkers were orphans, and she said time and again that Benji was correct."

"So she wasn't angry with him," I said.

"Never," said Jesse. "But I've never known her to be angry with anyone. I've known her only to be sad."

"And what about Mekare in all this?" I asked. "How has it been with Mekare since Akasha was killed? That's the question tormenting me most of the time though I don't particularly want to admit it. How goes it with the one who is the true Queen of the Damned?" I knew well enough that Mekare had from the beginning seemed unchangeable, uncommunicative, mute in soul as well as mute in body, a mysterious thing that obviously loved one person and one person only, her twin, Maharet.

"Has there been no change in her over these years?" I pushed.

Jesse didn't respond. She looked at me in silence and then her face broke. I thought she'd break down completely but she pulled herself up.

She looked at David. David sat back on the sofa, and took a deep breath. "Mekare has never shown any sign of understanding what in fact happened to her," David said. "Oh, in the beginning, Maharet had hopes."

"If there's a true mind there," said Jesse, "no one can reach it. How long it took for my aunt to resign herself to this I can't say."

I wasn't surprised, but I was horrified. And anytime in my life I'd been in contact with Mekare, I'd been uneasy, as if dealing with something that looked human but was in no way human anymore. Now, all blood drinkers truly are human; they never cease being human. They may talk of being more or less human, but they are human, with human thoughts, desires, human speech. Mekare's face had never been more expressive than that of an animal, as mysterious and unreachable as the face of an animal, a thing that seems intelligent yet is not intelligent in the way we are at all.

"Oh, she knows she's with her sister and she shows love to her sister," said David, "but beyond that, if any thought, any coherent verbal thought, has ever emanated from Mekare, I've never heard it, and neither has Jesse. And neither has Maharet as far as I ever knew."

"But she remains docile, manageable," I said. "She always seemed that way, utterly compliant. Isn't that so?"

Neither replied. Jesse was looking uneasily at David and then she turned to me as if just hearing my question. "It certainly did seem that way," she said. "In the beginning, Maharet would spend nights, weeks even, talking with her, walking with h

er, taking her about the jungle compound. She sang to her, played music for her, sat her down before the television screens, playing films for her, brilliant colorful films full of sunlight. I don't know if you remember how large it was, the compound with all those salons, or how much of an enclosed area it provided for solitary walks. They were always together. Maharet was obviously doing everything in her power to draw Mekare out."

I did remember those massive overarching screened enclosures, with the jungle exploding against the steel mesh. Orchids, the wild screeching South American birds with their long blue and yellow feathers, the vines dripping pink or yellow blossoms. Had there not been tiny Brazilian monkeys chattering in the upper branches? Maharet had imported every small colorful tropical creature or plant imaginable. It had been marvelous to roam the paths discovering secretive and picturesque stone grottoes, streams, and little waterfalls--to be in the wilderness and yet somehow safe from it at the same time.

"But I knew early on," said Jesse, "that Maharet was disappointed, almost brutally disappointed, only of course she'd never say. All those long centuries searching for Mekare, certain that Mekare could be alive somewhere, and then Mekare appearing to fulfill her curse against Akasha, and then this."

"I can imagine it," I said. I remembered Mekare's masklike face, those eyes as empty as the paperweight eyes of a French doll.

Jesse went on, a frown creasing her smooth forehead, her reddish-blond eyebrows catching the light.

"There was never a mention, never a declaration or a decision. But the long hours of talking stopped. No more reading aloud, or music, or films. And after that there was simple physical affection, the two walking arm in arm, or Maharet at her reading with Mekare sitting motionless on a bench nearby."

And of course, I thought to myself, the horrifying thought that this thing, this motionless, thoughtless being, contained the Sacred Core. But then was it so bad? Was it so bad for the host of the Sacred Core to be without thought, without dreams, without ambition, without designs?

Akasha, when she had risen from her throne, had been a monster. "I would be the Queen of Heaven," she'd said to me as she slew mortals, and urged me to do the same. And I, the consort, had done her bidding all too easily, to my everlasting shame. What a price I'd paid for the powerful Blood she'd given me, and the instructions. No wonder I kept to my refuge now. When I looked back over my myriad adventures sometimes all I saw was shame.

Maharet had rightfully described her sister as the Queen of the Damned.

I stood up and went to the window. I had to stop. Too many voices out there in the night. Benji in faraway New York was already broadcasting of the appearance of Lestat in Paris, with David Talbot and Jesse Reeves. His amplified voice poured forth from countless devices out there, warning the fledglings: "Children of the Night, leave them alone. For your own safety, leave them alone. They will hear my voice. They will hear me begging them to speak to us. Give them time. For your own safety, leave them alone."